It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog: May 2008

These are some reviews that I found helpful. I've just finished this novel and it was better than what I had expected.

I've heard it said that there are no new ideas left in the world. The proliferation of movie remakes, regurgitated pop music, and Danielle Steele novels certainly add to this argument. Even in "Rant," Palahniuk's latest novel, you won't see anything that hasn't already been covered by Sartre, Camus, or The Terminator. The thing about Palahniuk (and other brilliant writers like David Mitchell, Craig Clevenger, and Jonathan Lethem) is that while the message may not be all that new, the manner in which it is told is nothing short of stunning.

If you're paying close enough attention, Palahniuk gives away almost the entire story in the first four pages, and he drops plenty of hints along the way for those who still haven't caught on. "Rant" is about, alternately, an underground cult of car crashers, a rabies epidemic, the true essence of religion, and a guy named Buster Casey who is addicted to spider bites. Like his other novels, Palahniuk employs an encyclopedic knowledge of the macabre. His spare, punching prose ties together a medley of ideas and facts until what you're left with is a dizzying collage that is so kaleidoscopic, it'll probably take you three reads just to get half of what he's saying.

And he says a lot, in spite of the low page count. Some of "Rant," in fact, might feel rewarmed to the hardcore Palahniuk fan. A character named Echo Lawrence makes her money by exploiting the same weaknesses manipulated by Choke's Victor Mancini. Buster's physical immolations recall Shannon McFarland's reality-enhancing disfigurement from Invisible Monsters. And the whole idea of Party Crashing (an underground cult of Nighttimers who get their kicks by intentionally hunting down and wrecking into each other) is an obvious off-shoot of Fight Club's nihilistic pugilism (an observation that is actually made by Palahniuk himself, three-quarters through the book).

While those past books were great in their own ways (although "Choke" was a bit more mainstream than usual), they were also all pretty single-minded of purpose. In "Rant," Palahniuk's blistering pen stabs into several themes -- population control, theistic iconography, segregation, and (of course) life as a diversion from reality, the theft of existence by a society that is happier with blunted and denuded entertainments than with the raw, sometimes poisonous, bite of true, fully aware experience. Most Eastern philosophies are all about achieving true consciousness through an elevation of the mind; Palahniuk wants the same thing, but his methods of transcendence involve far more noise, chaos, and pain.

If it sounds confusing, it is, but the real brilliance (and -- believe it or not -- beauty) of "Rant" is how all of these themes dissolve into one another. There is no clutter here, in spite of the density of the words. The fact that the book is arranged in the form of an oral biography -- told exclusively through snippets of interviews and recorded information -- only adds to the story's web-like framework, highlights each dark, glistening strand.

"Rant" is a lot of things. It is part Strange Days, part Perfume, and part Cronenberg's Crash. It is half a condemnation of a spirit-deadening world, and half a celebration of it. It's morbid, grotesque, unsettling, evocative, and sometimes just plain hilarious.

It's Palahniuk. What more can I say?

Another One:

Subtitled An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, Rant is an experimental novel by author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Survivor, Haunted). Before the novel ever begins, Palahniuk explains what the oral biography tradition means to this novel. The tradition of oral biography means simply that the story of Buster Casey is told by multiple interviews of people who knew Casey, knew of Casey, and perhaps did not know Casey at all but wanted to be interviewed about Buster Casey. There is no true narrative thread in the sense of the reader seeing the action unfold from the perspective of Casey. Rant is entirely about Buster Casey, but from the viewpoint of others. What this means is that some of the interviewees will contradict with each other and disagree with what others have said about Buster Casey and the situations surrounding his life and death.

So, who is Buster Casey? This is the question which Rant attempts to answer. Early in the novel Buster "Rant" Casey is referred as one of the great mass murderers in history, but what is apparent from early on in the novel is that Rant Casey was a charismatic young man, but he never got far enough away to truly be a mass killer. How exactly, then, is this possible?

The journey Chuck Palahniuk takes his readers on is one of a young man who never quite fit in, but was always exceptionally popular. Oh, and he had rabies. Yes, this is vitally central of the story of Rant.

In the first paragraph I called Rant an experimental novel and it is. The narrative is not straight forward, it jumps around all over in chronology depending on what the interviewees are discussing at the time. Shifting chronology is not necessarily a major issue and it works with the format, but the shifting chronology and the multiple narrator format makes Rant a bit disjointed. Palahniuk spins something of a dystopian future novel, mixes in accidental genocide, time travel, rabies, spider bites, and a rather creative counter culture called Party Crashing (whatever you think it might be, it's not that). The ingredients are all here for something that could be quite good. Palahniuk fails to deliver the goods.

The multiple narrator format can work exceptionally well in fiction. Take Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Erdrich's Love Medicine as examples of how to do this well. As I Lay Dying is the standard. Now, Chuck Palahniuk is not exactly doing a true multiple narrator format as the format normally requires one narrator per chapter. Rant, as stated earlier and in the subtitle, is an oral biography. The chapters are collected by topic, not by narrator. Each chapter features short paragraphs (or several paragraphs) by each of the participants in the oral biography. Together it forms something of a narrative.

I believe it is the very format of Rant which contributes to Rant feeling disjointed and not at all compelling. Every time a particular point of view or storyline gets intense, it is pulled away by the next narrator. Rant is an interesting fiction experiment, and something that could work in short doses to complement a more conventional novel, but as a complete novel in an of itself, the oral biography in Palahniuk's hands does not work. This is a great disappointment because Palahniuk is capable of some outstanding fiction, lately his output has not lived up to the promise of his earlier work. Still, there is hope because Chuck Palahniuk is an immensely creative storyteller and one who is worth giving many chances to because when the man delivers, he can leave his reader short of breath.

Another:

Whatever your favorite title by this author may be, I doubt any of you will champion this new submission by Mr. Palahniuk as your favorite.

In it there's a reiteration of a few thoughts touched upon in his books `Stranger Than Fiction' and `Haunted,' intermingled with what appears to be a strong influence by J.G. Ballard's apocalyptic fetishes ( The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard ) written in the style of Capote.

This may be a personal problem, but I find that his writing technique doesn't much lend itself to long-term memory. Be it his interspersing of the narrative in small bits in every chapter, it's difficult for me, even a few days after finishing one of his novels to recall the plot flow.
Which is a shame, because I can RECall laughing out loud at points, but stumble for words when trying to relay it to someone else.

What's worrisome to me in this book is its consistent references to `Fight Club.' I can't put my finger quite on it, but referencing a pop culture phenomenon that you yourself created while simultaneously trying to create another seems a bit `hack-ish' - for lack of a better word.
He goes so far as to spend nearly 3 chapters outlining the rules of this new car-rendition of `fight club,' in which obvious care and consideration was put towards the safety of his readers whom I expect he hopes will mimic said game, as we have his others.

But something sad happens when you obediently follow an author through the course of their career (I have all of his first editions signed.) It dawns on you; that perhaps to begin with they had wonderful things to say and you were glad to hear them, but you see a very strong equation to their story telling.
With Palahniuk it's simply this:

1. Anti-hero is at odds with environment.
2. Anti-hero then participates in seemingly masochistic acts (sometimes nudged along by a guru that is somehow blood related) to achieve an enlightenment fitting to environment.

He does try something slightly different in this book, towards the end, which I won't mention details - I don't like getting into plot - he deals with some scientific theories through these characters telling the story. It seems a little last minute, usually he leaves the gurus wisdom up for interpretation, but here he attempts to explain, and really does a poor job. I really don't know if philosophical and scientific explanations will ever be his strong point.

Of course its entertaining, and well written, and funny, but there's not much to walk away with here.

Plot Summary:

Buster Casey was born in the rural town of Middleton, the son of Chester and Irene Casey, at birth he was gifted with a sense of smell and taste far more advanced than any other human.

His nickname "Rant" came from a childhood prank involving animal organs which resulted in numerous people getting sick. As each person threw up, they made a sound that resembled the word "rant," which became a local synonym for "vomit" and Buster's nickname. One of the book's subtle themes is that two people can see the same person very differently. This is partly made known by the fact that Rant's parents even called him by different names. His mother Irene calls her son Buddy and her husband Chet. Rant's father Chester calls his wife Reen and his son Buster, while Rant simply calls them "mom" and "dad".

As a child Rant discovered a massive wealth that turned the small town's economy on it's head. He then became obsessed with getting bitten by rabid animals along with venomous snakes and spiders. After getting bitten by several highly toxic spiders Rant discoverd that their bites came with an unusual physical side effect. He uses this to get out of school and eventually threatens his way to an early diploma and a rather large check that he uses to leave town. It isn't until Rant arrives in the city that it becomes clear that the novel takes place in a dystopian future, where urban dwellers are forcefully divided by curfew into two separate classes: the respectable Daytimers and the oppressed Nighttimers.

Rant becomes a Nighttimer and finds himself swept up in the Nighttimer lifestyle that mostly revolves around Party Crashing, a covert demolition derby played out on city streets at night. The game is organized by an unknown entity and is set during a designated window of time. The object of the game is to crash, not too forcefully, into other players who sport a certain "flag", such as a Christmas tree on the car's roof or the words "Just Married" scrawled on the rear windshield. As Rant becomes increasingly involved in Party Crashing he meets Echo Lawernce, a fellow crasher and the girl that he falls in love with. Together they start a nation wide rabies epidemic that eventually errupts into zombie invasion proportions that calls for those infected with rabies to be shot and killed on sight.

Rant eventually dies during a Party Crashing event. His death is viewed and listend to by millions on national television and the "Graffic Traffic" radio show. However, when the car is pried open, his body is somehow missing. After his "death" in the novel, many interviewees share their speculations about Rant's strange fate and its implications for society along with the rabies outbreak.

Some interveiwees and friends of Rant speculate that crashing a car while in a given state of mind, will jar a person outside of time. Once this is acomplished, they can then go back and kill off all of their ancestors, in turn, making them immortal. Or they can, through incest, make themself into something more than human. Rant's friends believe that he has gone back in time to stop Green Taylor Simms, a previous time-travelling incarnation of himself, from raping his mother. Rant fails, and opts to change his name to Chester before he weds his mother and helps raise himself.